08.07.2019 | New circumstances regarding the case of the murder occurred 25 years ago

The Court of Appeal has started proceeding on a case on the murder of 25 years ago, submitted to the court by the RA military prosecutor's office. The case has been reopened due to the identification of new facts. In 2018, the police of Armenia has received a statement from E. P. that in 1994, in a restaurant complex in the village of Taronik, as a result of a quarrel H. G. killed the applicant's father M. P., however, as a result of a frame-up of facts H. G. has been sentenced to just one year in prison. During the preparation of the facts in this case, E.P. reaffirmed the information previously provided to them, adding that specific people who were at the crime scene reported him about the incident. Moreover, he noted that after the incident, the uncle of H.G. M. G. came to their house and intimidated his grandfather with so that he did not file a complaint, after which their family, frightened, left Armenia.

A certificate was also received, signed by the then Deputy Minister of Defense, that M. P. died on April 16, 1994, while on duty. As a result the RA police, on August 6, 2018 has initiated a criminal case under Article 314 of the RA Criminal Code.

As a result of large-scale operational and investigative actions carried out during the preliminary investigation, evidence was obtained that M. P., director of the Echmiadzin factory "Toch Pribor", with three people, on April 16, 1994, went to a restaurant in the village of Aknalich. After lunch, several people approached them, including H.G. There was a quarrel, during which H. G., after a shot in the air, shot at M. P. and fled from the scene.

However, on April 26, a decision was made to change the charge, and on December 19, the court made a decision on recognizing H.G. guilty under point "B" 259.1 of the article, according to which M. P. died as a result of improper handling of weapons by H.G., and he was deprived of his liberty for a period of one year.

Also, the documents have been confiscated from the Ministry of Defense according to which M. P. was found dead, despite the fact that the latter had no relation to military service. According to these documents, P. died on April 16, 1994 in the village of Mataghis in the NKR, which contradicts the materials of the criminal case and the decision of the court. Moreover, M. P. was posthumously awarded a medal for courage by the second president of the Republic Armenia in 2002.

Given the newly discovered and previously unknown to the court circumstances in this case, which prove that the crime of the convicted person was more serious than the one for which he was convicted, the military prosecutor Vahe Harutyunyan has initiated a criminal case.